Car manufacturer Volvo Cars is entering into a partnership with Chinese internet giant Baidu. The companies will jointly develop electric autonomous vehicles for China, the largest market for cars worldwide.
This was announced by Ya-Qin Zhang, managing director of Baidu, and Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars, at Baidu World 2018 in Beijing, China. Volvo is the first carmaker worldwide to enter into a partnership with the Chinese company. As part of this collaboration, Baidu is making its Apollo platform for autonomous driving available. Volvo Cars provides technologies and expertise. Baidu deliberately chooses to cooperate with Volvo in view of its reputation for safety.
Biggest sales market worldwide
The Chinese market is the largest sales market for cars worldwide. For instance, research firm IHS Markit predicts that 14.5 million autonomous vehicles will be sold in the Asian country this year. By comparison, the global figure is 33 million units. The country is also expected to remain the largest sales market in the coming decades. This makes China a very interesting market for car manufacturers as well as tech companies.
"With Baidu, we are taking a big step forward in commercialising our autonomous-compatible cars, built on Volvo's safety technology," Samuelsson said. "Autonomous driving is developing strongly in China, where Baidu is a leading player. The market offers huge opportunities for us as a preferred supplier for autonomous fleets." Dr Ya-Qin Zhang, managing director of Baidu, said in a comment that he looks forward to working closely with Volvo to develop safe products. He also points to the safety innovations Volvo has introduced in the past.
Volvo wants to gain leading position
Earlier this year, Volvo announced its intention to take a leading position in both electric cars, autonomous vehicles and new car access and ownership models. The company says its partnership with Baidu underlines these ambitions. Volvo expects to generate a third of its annual sales from autonomous vehicles by the middle of the next decade.
Volvo has therefore been pushing autonomous driving for some time. For instance, the company has been working with NVIDIA since 2017 to develop systems and software for self-driving cars. In early October, the carmaker announced it was expanding this collaboration to develop a new core processor suitable for artificial intelligence (AI), a technology that plays a crucial role in autonomous vehicles. The processor is based on NVIDIA's DRIVE AGX Xavier technology, developed specifically for self-driving cars.
Scalable Architecture 2
The new processor is expected to be incorporated in new Volvo models based on the future vehicle platform 'Scalable Architecture 2'. This is a modular platform based on the SPA platform Volvo uses in the current 90 and 60 series. New technologies have been added to the successor to this platform in the areas of electrification, connectivity and autonomous driving. The core processor that Volvo is developing with NVIDIA will be integrated into this platform and will, among other things, allow remote software updates to be rolled out to vehicles.
Volvo expects to launch the first model with the new processor early in the next decade. The carmaker expects the platform to help introduce innovative driver assistance systems, energy management features and 'in-car' personalisation capabilities.
"A successful introduction of autonomous driving requires enormous computing power and continuous advances in artificial intelligence," Samuelsson said in October when announcing the renewed cooperation with NVIDIA. "Our new agreement with NVIDIA is an important piece of that puzzle. It helps us offer safe self-driving cars to our customers."
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Volvo Cars (pictured)
Source: Baidu
